Sword art online a New begining
by flaming hunter
Summary: A new set of players have arrived, they wild weaponry no one else has, but lack many kinds that everyone has. How will they affect things in the long run?
1. Chapter 1

**_[Mass effect intro]_**

 ** _The history of Humanity is one filled with pain, we were hunter and gatherers, barely above any animal. With time we learned and we grew, fought wars and created wonders, with those wonders came great bloodshed, ancient empires grew and crumbled away._**

 ** _Great nations rose and fell, it wasn't until world war three that we learned to get along despite any illusion of abundance, we could no longer afford to act as we did before, there were so few of us left._**

 ** _The first colonies we in our moon, next was space itself, then Mars the red world who many before us dreamed of visiting and exploring. It was there that the secret to Mass controls technology was discovered, it wouldn't be until years later that the public would know, that it had been discovered inside an ancient alien structure._**

 ** _The technology discovered by those first explorers brought forth the ability to build greater ships that could hold thousands, rather than three or five people and their equipment, long gone were the days of bulky slow spaceships, now smooth behemoths drifted in space, going from planet to planet, slowing us to finally expand our reach._**

 ** _In time we learned how to terraform our worlds and undo the damage done to our cradle world of Earth, with accelerate light travel, we were able to reach distant worlds, but getting there took months and sometimes years._**

 ** _So great ships made for generations were built from our best technology, filled with all of the information Humanity had and sent of with their crew of colonist. Many ships would be lost forever, few found themselves at the worlds of their destination, others to this day still drift._**

 ** _The discovery of an ancient alien device shaped like a tuning fork allowed for true faster than light travel, however, it was limited to the locations where another tuning fork device was located, so our many colonies were still lost to us._**

 ** _With the discovery of the alien device, the many nations on each world gathered together and created a defense fleet that would be tasked to protect each world, with time each world either had their own fleets or highly equipped soldiers to defend it and it alone._**

 ** _Finally, it was time to begin to colonize the worlds the alien device had led us to, with time those colonize grew and flourished, trade between worlds helped created amazing empires._**

 ** _Yet everything changed the day another ancient alien device was found, at first our explores went hoping for new worlds and a greater future. That would never happen, instead, they found themselves meeting a race of four-eyed orange skinned slavers._**

 ** _Soon we were under invasion, we tried to defend ourselves, but with every passing battle our defenses were weekend and soon one by one the colonies went dark, until finally, our cradle star system started getting invaded._**

 ** _Now the only areas the aliens haven't touched are those colonies that were sent off long ago far away from the alien devices._**

 ** _{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{_**

 ** _[_ Aincrad ]**

 **... It started five years ago.**

 **Five years ago two competing companies released an advanced version of virtual reality, now people could enter a game feel the air, speak to each other and move inside the game, however, things like smell, the feelings of pain and more were far from ever being able to be experienced.**

 **This was done by the headsets used to separate the player's minds from their bodies.**

 **Unfortunately, both companies used a neural network that was only approved by the governments of the world because of its supposed safety.**

 **Unfortunately, the nightmare began when the networked was named by a madman and the our nightmare began.**

 **Sword Art Online, a game based around medical fantasies and Gungale Online, a game based on advanced futuristic combat, somehow became merged and for five years we fought on in a desperate attempt to pass the mad mans death game.**

 **Finish the game and you get to go free he said.**

 **So we fought on and learned to mix the skills of the games, soon knights could be seen with advanced energy shields, smiths now forged tank armors and animals like horses soon became a better option to some vehicles.**

 **Soon multiple groups were created, those that never tried to pass the game, they simply didn't have the will or were too young.**

 **Those that gave up and started new lives and those that fought on, until finally, we reached the one-hundredth floor, the final floor of the game and we were met with an unholy mixture of flesh and machine.**

 **At the end of it all, when the final boss fell we had lost nearly everyone with only a handful of people left.**

 **In a bright flash of light, we all thought our nightmare was over... We were wrong.**

 **()())()()()()**

As I gasped for air and whipped the blood from my mouth and nose I could feel the grass underneath me, my only thought at the moment was that either we had been lied to or something had gone terribly wrong.

Automatically my help screen came to life [ **Minimal damage sustained final boss battle compile, congratulations** ] was the only thing it showed.

Slowly my thoughts started getting clear and the confusion born from a mixture of pain and shock, slowly vanish leaving we with the realization that I could taste the blood in my mouth, the fact that even my eyes hurt because of all of the light around me didn't even seem to cross my mind.

"Kirito you okay man?" Said a man right beside me.

As I turned at the short spiky red-headed man all I could do was let out a faint smile. "Yeah" was the only thing I could say.

[ **Alert due to the completion of all stages, all players held in standby will now be released. All players that have been killed will now return to life...processing, all stages past all players will now have their respawning re-enabled.]**

 **[Error...error...error...]**

 **[Unknown variables have been encountered...Accessing GunGale Online information... Processing. Enabling kinetic-light-energy- void shields (enabling atmosphere shielding, this will provide a livable atmosphere for the inhabitants of Aincrad]**

I ignored the notification the A.I sent to my help screen, in reality, I couldn't care at the moment my body demanded my attention, for the first time in years every part of my body screamed in pain.

By no means was it a blinding pain but with every a temp of movement, I made each part of my body sent a shock of pain surging thru.

I could feel my bones- muscles and even skin move, like if they were realizing themselves to better fit me. All of a sudden a shock of pain surged thru my head to the point where even the light around me burned my eyes.

I could hear my friend cry out in pain until a ringing sound was the only thing I could hear.

[ **Activating railguns- activating laser defenses- arming missile defenses- grappling chain support activating...processing activating waste removal systems- water purification- climate control- air filtration system activated.]**

All of a sudden the pain was gone and I immediately realized that for some reason my body felt somehow more solid.

"Kirito, I have to go check on my team." Klein said to me as he held his stomach in pain, he didn't even wait for my answer, the man just rose to his feet and walked away.

Slowly I rose to my feet and realized that my body felt heavy, both the weight of my armor combined with my bodies own.

"Kirito" I heard a soft voice behind me and as I turned to look who it was, I found myself looking at my wife's worried expression. Yet as I was about to say something my help screen popped out again this time however it showed the image, no it was the video of an asteroid belt.

Slowly the image of several planets and in the center the star that kept everything warm, but littering the empty space was the wreckage of several spaceships and satellites and space stations.

[Deploying drones.] The help screen announced before several small objects were shown flying off into the distance. Soon the words salvageable or to damage began to appear, then the images of the planets started coming thru.

Only one planet had things like office buildings, shopping malls and houses, however, there were no people anywhere and the extremely few animals found, were so rare that Kirito beloved that unless there were more hiding somewhere the species would all be extinct in a few years.

[ **Information gathering**...] Immediately after those words were shown, things like cartoons, weather reports and simple things people used for entertainment started coming thru, however, they all quickly changed to images and recordings of something that looked somehow like a giant ship or a submarine at least until the words Fiftyfith Colony ship were shown.

"It was one of humanities colonies," Asuna said after the video was shown, her expression, however, was one filled with worry. "Kirito, what could have happened to all of those people?" She said as we both watched the wreckage that was marked as salvageable being dragged back into what looked like an entrance to Aincrad itself.

"I don't know, but if it wants trouble. It's going to find itself facing a small army of battle-hardened veterans." I answered her while trying to give her some form of comfort.

As we both looked at each other, we began to move almost automatically and soon we were both embracing each other in a right hug, before our lips met.

From what little I was able to gather, either Aincrad had somehow become real or we were still inside the game and it had become much more realistic. Add to that the flying castle that had been our prison had become some sort of giant spaceship and apparently either space pirates exist or there are some killer aliens out there.

But right now none of that matters, for us the death game is over and even if we are still inside the machine, right now the only thing I can and will do is take my wife home and rest, it was one hell of a war against the final boss after all.

(Character change Klein )

I left Kirito behind, knowing that guy he would soon have his wife around or he would be able to stand up back on his own ground. It was messed up to leave the guy alone at the moment, but my guild needed its leader at the moment and if that alert from earlier was real then things will be getting a lot more interesting soon.

As I arrived at the nearest town, I started hearing the sounds of infants crying and soon the smell of animal feces hit me and as I walked I noticed people were shining away, like if they were fearful to make a wrong move around me.

A man begging at the side of the street made me pause for a moment, he was nearly completely skin and bones, plus the only thing he wore was some sort of cloth to cover his privates. Normally I would have ignored this, None playable Characters usually don't really care, but for some reason, this just seemed too real.

I stopped in front of the man and took off my cape and handed it to the man and told him to cover himself. The man hesitated about nonetheless stretched his hand and took the cape, before I left I handed him several gold coins.

Things looked more realistic now and the realization that I was still inside the game began to hit me, but even as I started to cry, I realized I was crying. The game could copy a lot a person could do in real life but basic body functions like crying and going to the bathroom weren't easily copied.

Slowly I realized that either the game was heavenly updated or this had all somehow become real and the problem with that is that, I don't know which one of the two is more frightening.


	2. Chapter 2

In a nearby tavern, I found my team members had already gathered each one of them were either holding their head in pain or just drinking like crazy trying to hold back their tears. As I walked up to them, I saw one of my friends move a cup in front of me before he moved a chair for me to sit.

I just sat there and listened to them talk amongst themselves, whenever one of them would say something to me, I would answer them and when they cried I tried to comfort them, but for the most part, I kept quiet, right now my guild needed it's leader to be strong.

We had all fought like crazy for over five years and our reward for it all was nothing, nothing really changed it was just more of the same.

This was bad over the years I've seen people sink into depression and unless they found things to keep them occupied they will sink into depression and no one knows if they will be able to come out of it any time soon, if at all.

That's how people commit suicide all of a sudden.

Again my help screen popped out and a video of a nearby world could be seen, there was nothing interesting about it except that it had some spaceships and space stations still operating, but for some reason, there were seems of lights flying all over the place.

Then all of a sudden the space stations began to open fire and even as Aincrad began to move away, the alien ships began to chance after Aincrad while opening fire.

I could feel a smile grow on my face, it was a long shot and we had just fought in a major engagement, but right now my team needed a pick me up, even if that pick me up, was nothing more than entering another warzone then so be it.

Soon the help screen began to light up, either with voice recordings from other players simply wanting to show the aliens not to bother us or images of the ship designs matching some that had been recovered from the planet we had found earlier.

"So what do you guys say, want to go outside the castle for a while?" I asked my guild even as I smiled at them, I could see their expressions of morning somehow harden and the fire slowly midnight inside their eyes.

One by one they stood up and walked out the door their destination clear, the large teleportation crystal in the middle of the village.

(Point of view change)

In a distant world where hope was something unheard of to its native people, life went on like usual, slave ships came and went, dropping off their cargo, be it the unfortunate souls that would never know freedom again, precious gems, rare technology and in rare occasions maps of previously uncharted regions of space.

It was a common thing here to hear the screams of morning mothers that had their children torn from them and sold to the highest bidder or young maidens that cry as they were raped by their slave masters.

Either way, be it a strong warrior or a delicate female, all would eventually have the same look in their eyes. It was a dead and distant look, that anyone that made contact with any of them would instantly know the people had all simply given up.

Today was no different from yesterday and tomorrow would be the same, or so everyone thought, they believed, until a strange spacial anomaly began to occur near the planet. Somehow a hole in space had opened up and from it strings shot out, yet the strings never touched anything or did anything for that matter.

That is until a strange ship emerged from it, it was a strange thing, from the bottom a spiral formation served as its base, with several supports on inside, while the top part was more elegantly designed to look like some sort of fortress.

Instantly dozens of pirate vessels opened fire not caring for any type of diplomacy, their ships used missiles and mass accelerated rails guns to attack the strange castle shaped ship, even as the inhabitants of said ship tried to contact them.

Finally after the attempts to stop the attack simply by communication, the ship began to flee, unfortunately the pirates saw this as a show of weakness and began to person the strange ship.

They continued the attack, yet none of their weapons ever did any harm, as the strange ship's shields proved too strong for their weapons to overcome.

Finally, the crew of the strange ship had, had enough and returned fire, lasers, railguns and as strange as it might seem even cables were used to immobilize the pirate ships, destroying any craft they came in contact with. Within moments drones were sent planetside as the pirate defenders, were either killed or forced to flee the planet.

Within moments dozens of drones left the castle-shaped craft and began to assault the satellites around the pirate controlled world and the crews of any space station still in operation found that space stations systems were now completely unresponsive to them.

Within moments video footage of what went on inside the many spaceships, space stations and even on the planet itself was shown to the people of the flying castle and players felt themselves enveloped in a maddening rage.

So a single drone, was sent to each part of the planet allowing the players to go planet side by teleportation, allowing the players to deal with the pirates themselves. However, they would only be a distraction, as the slave collars used to keep the slaves under control were deactivated, allowing the slaves to finally get their long wanted revenge on their captors and the fact that many slaves had managed to get to a communications device and had begun to call for help, thereby giving out the location of the planet, to those that simply wanted revenge.

By the time the fighting ended several players would drag away vehicles, weapons, machines that caught their interest and anything they liked before vanishing from sight, they would only leave several markers behind so if they ever had to return to that world they would have a way in, that no one would know about until the day they used it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Sorry for not getting back to you, but I normally write to my reviewers in private messaging. It helps keep away trolls.**  
 **Think of Aincrad as a giant space fortress that has everything people need to live and the castle was dropped off in the MassEffect Univers. It's for this reason that the castle has enough firepower and unknown defenses that it can defend itself from anything the mass effect universe has.**

 **With that being said, the numbers are not in the player's side. That's where Gun Gale comes in they have a lot of guns-vehicles and robots to at least even out the odds in a real war.**  
 **As to where GunGale is, it's inside the castle but each floor has its own separate area. Sorry for my misspellings, I appreciate you pointing out my flaws**.

[][][][]][]][]]  
(Character change Kirito)

"The players had been divided into three groups when Aincrad had been attacked by the aliens, several players had gone to fight, some had gone just to see some other place other than the flying castle they had lived in, others had gone just because they wanted something, anything to do and not have to think about what was going on the others had gone simply for the thrill of it.

Kirito himself and his wife decided to join the already formed group of players that simply chose to start new lives, unfortunately, the last group made this nearly impossible.

Laughing Coffin and Death Bullet two murder guilds had been resurrected alongside every other player that had died before.

Unfortunately, every high-level player had to go deal with those madmen and women, when the death game started those two groups were responsible for the deaths of the majority of players and by the time everyone else had gotten organized, the only option left was to kill them all.

These were not the kind of people that could be negotiated with, thankfully the A.I had immediately marked them as killers, so he and his wife along with the other players went out hunting for them.

So for three weeks, they hunted and fought on, with every fight the realization of how far apart everyone that had participated in going up the castle, was from the ones that hadn't. It was obvious that we would be better armed, physically we would be stronger and faster, but to the extent we were was ridiculous.

If he had to put it in words Kirito would have to say it was like comparing a child to an adult.

Luckily it was all over now every Murder Guild member was safely locked away in the bottom of the bottom of the castle, it's an area that's guarded by several monsters that can't be killed, while they can be immobilized a person has to act quickly because the monsters will get back up again.

Still, as he laid in his bed with his wife and held her thin figure he couldn't help but think that right now he was the luckiest man in the world. Her long brown chestnut colored hair and hazel colored eyes, alongside her light almost pale skin, would fool anyone into thinking she was a frail girl.

They would soon find out how wrong they are and would regret it the moment they made her angry.

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(Point of view change )

The stone streets of the fifteenth floor were covered in lights as the people celebrated a victory brought abought by those they called their defenders. Woman danced alongside their Husbands and children, while the various musicians played their instruments

However, within one of the largest buildings, a meeting was taking place, several players were sitting around a table, in front of them were various pictures and videos showing several aliens being dissected.

The first body was a captured four-eyed alien that looked human but was considerably stronger, the second was a blue-skinned woman with tentacles on their heads instead of hair.

The next one was a gray looking alien with a thin body and the last was a bird-like alien that had no feathers.

As the dissection continued most of the players began to draw out folders that had been given to them when they had entered the building. They each looked at a picture of a planet- asteroid or group of asteroids and space stations, next to them were their names and access codes.

Finally one of the players begins to speak. "Gentlemen, we don't know what's going on, so let's revise what we do know."

"We are in space and somehow both our games have become one, that's the good news. The bad news is, apparently everyone and their grandma is an evil bastard."

"We have an alien race that looks like human women, they have all the of the right parts, but their skin is blue-they have tentacles for hair and can create bloody black holes inside our bodies. Not only that, if you let any of them touch you, they can somehow enter your mind."

"Don't ask me how they do it"

"From what our Artificial Intelligence, was able to decipher from the planet we left behind, the blue-skinned woman worked alongside the four-eyed ones. As you can see right now our guys are trying to find out what makes them tick."

"Why don't we just avoided these places, there's no reason for us to even fight." Asked one of the othered players.

There was a momentary pause and the one that was speaking first tried to gather the proper words.

"The reason is simple, like it or not we are going to have to deal with them eventually. These are the dominant figures on this side of the galaxy." Answered the first player.

"So essentially, we just ticked off the boss and its possible he or they will be gunning for us." Said another player.

"...There's also the other issue, the machine. The Mass Relay, they aliens faster than light we're going to have to use it pretty soon. From what the Castles computers have shown us, we're headed in that things direction anyway." Said another player.

"No problem, we can just use our own in order to bypass it. If anyone else has anything more to add, then I guess that's it, this is the end of the meeting." Said the first player, the room was quiet before everyone rose from their seats and walked out.

As the first player watched the screen in front of him he changed the station and began to watch several of the machines repairing some of the ships they had found earlier, even as the spaceships were being upgraded with some of the players own weapons, like long-range energy lasers, energy shields and miniature rail guns.

His help screen activated itself and the video of a massive ship heading towards them was shown. It was an old abandoned warship, it was heavily built and reinforced, with several guns that looked more like canons.

Krogan 104 was the only thing the computers could decipher, the ships name was still unknown.

Automatically several drones were sent out to investigate the alien ship, one by one they began to scan the entire ship, until they found several openings blasted thru the body of the ship.

From what the videos showed there were several alien bodies found, the ship belonged to a lizard-like race, that was built like a tank and as Aincrads computers began to check the bodies found, it discovered that the lizards could fight nearly none stop.

"If they're still around they would be a problem." Thought the first player.

Still as the first player watched he could see several massive chains shoot out from Aincrad and be attached to the alien ship, before the alien ship was dragged next to Aincrad.

 **[Planet ahead, we're the words the screen suddenly shows.]**

Immediately drones were sent out to explore the world only for the images of ruins were the only thing to come back. Immediately the drones set out to find anything that might be alive, however, only animals were discovered.

One of the drones used its power core and revived a machine that looked similar to a holographic display and a recording of a strange spider-like race was shown. A family or what looked like it, a male, a female and two children.

The children unboxing what looked like toy robots and then chaos, mechanical appendages, covered in what looked like blood, the last image was a mechanical face staring at the recording device.

"A robot uprising." Said the first player, as the image of a bomb detonating in the sky made the robots fall dead, an electric magnetic pulse had been used to stop the insane machines.

With a flip of his wrist, the first player wet the video to every other player, like it or not but they now had to take in consideration, insane machines that wanted to kill them.


	4. Chapter 4

(Character change Klein)

He laid in a large tub filled with hot water and felt his body adjust to the heat, slowly the pain in his bones calmed a servant girl walked in and began to pour more water in, as she was about to leave he graved her hand and the girl looked at him with a startled expression, that soon turned to one of understanding.

They had chosen this particular bathhouse because it was adult oriented and gave special service to its clients. The girl smiled and even before he let go of her hand, she had begun to take off her long dress, slowly the girl entered the tub and he enjoyed the next hour and a half letting go of all of his stress.

When his time was done and he dress himself he turned to look at the woman that had served him well today, a faint smile crossed his face the girl could barely walk and had to sit on the floor, simply because her feet didn't answer her.

As he exited the bath part of the building, he found his team was already sitting down drinking, yet as he walked up to them he noticed that he could see the world outside and for a moment he understood how much things had changed.

It was raining outside and a man ran down the street using his hands to hide from the rain, he ran passed a man who was walking with ought a care, as a portable shield generator kept the rain from touching him.

As Klein looked he noticed that the only thing dirty about the man, was the fact he had a mustard stain on the man's sleeve.

A horse-drawn carriage moved through the street as a motorcycle sped right past it, even as he walked up to his friends and sat down immediately a waitress brought him a plate filled with warm food.

Slowly people began to get used to their new lives inside Aincrad, there was no real difference for the players, the people in Gun Gale had to get used to a slightly more limited area around them, other than that nothing really changed for anyone.

One thing did change, however, with the Gun Gale players came their technology and with the Aincrad Players came multiple different races and both of these things combined meant entertainment, for the people inside the castle.

For the most part, the Gun Gale natives stayed on their side, the same went for the natives of Aincrad did the same, they only interacted with one another when someone wanted something, the natives of Gun gale had technology while the people of Aincrad had food and clean fresh water.

There was no way of one side invading the other because there was a wall of monster deciding the two sides, on one side there were insane and mutated animals on the other was a group of animals that seemed almost magical in nature, that could easily shrug off long-range weapons.

One good change, however, was the fact nearly everyone had a television now, hell there were even televisions in the streets just randomly showing cartoons for people to enjoy.

As time passed he and his team had begun to realize that the natives around them were no longer simple code made to look like people, no the people now cried-ate-drank became ill and mourned when their loved ones died.

Not only that but they themselves now were different or better said they were Human, somehow they could do everything they had been able to do in the real world. Women now had their periods, people used the restroom and more importantly peoples sexual desire had made itself known.

The television showed another planet they passed, it was interesting not having to go off to fight all of the time.

"What is this the fifteenth alien world we pass?" Dale asked as he lifted up his cup of hot coffee, the man's heavy red armor combined with his heavyset body almost made him look like a giant.

"It's like this entire area of space is like one big farmhouse, ponies- zebras- minotaurs- dragons-donkeys- cows- dogs and pigs. At this point, I might feel bad for eating so much meat, I meant it's weird seeing those animals building houses and working in farms." Issin said, one of our more thin members said as he ate a hit now of beef stew.

All of a sudden the television began to pike up a transmission from a faraway planet. ()()()

It showed a world under attack by a familiar looking group of aliens, the ones that had orange skin and four eyes, it showed a planet that was burning and people being rounded up in groups and carried off somewhere, where they were put in ships and flown into space.

Rage began to spread inside Aincrad as the people saw Humans being burned down, even as the planet sent out words of surrender or calls for reinforcements, until the last thing that was shown on the television screen was the coordinates for finding the planet.

No that wasn't right, the last few minutes of the video was shown to him by the help screen he had.

Instantly an alert was shown in every player's help screens, a simple yes or no question. Should they go help that unknown world or just let it be, yes he no help.

People began to argue with each other, that worlds people were nothing to them, they knew no one there and had no real reason to risk their lives for any of them, for that matter what did they care, if they were in trouble and the people of the planet picked up their call for help, would they help.

Others countered by saying that they had already seen how cruel the aliens could be and that even if those people were N.P.C's they were still Humans and for that matter had to be protected, just as they protected the ones onboard.

All arguments ended when someone asked if they could they found interesting and someone answered, the aliens are going to be dead, they won't need any of their things anymore. At that moment the arguments ended and people voted yes to go help that world.

For a moment he turned to look at his team and they a shook their heads, they wouldn't be taking part of this engagement, they were resting right now and if things went bad they would be needed as reinforcements.

,[ Point of view change]

Long ago Humanity set off from its homeworld of Earth to its neighbor world named Mars, there they found an abandoned alien structure that housed some of the alien's technology and information, soon the secrets to mass-based technology were uncovered and so began an age of great technological development.

One, in particular, was the secret to a type of faster than light technology and ways of building better spaceships, soon Humanity had begun to explore and colonize the nearby worlds, within the aliens information was the location of a device used to move from system to system, it was held as the greatest discovery in human history, the rest of the universe simply called it Mass Effect.

On the other system the device sent the first explorers, a garden world was found, a planet perfect for Human life, like before the rest of the planets were explored and colonized, a planet that had a lot of minerals used for shipbuilding was used as nothing more than a mining colony, while the rest of the planets had little to nothing to offer, they would take years to terraform before they could be used.

Unfortunately, when another device was found it led to contact with a hostile race of aliens that fired at the exploration ship.

After that came an invasion, one that has lasted for five years, all colony worlds have either gone silent or have been completely concord by the aliens, their population's enslaved and used as nothing more labor for the aliens now it seems life has given Humanity another twist.

At the edge of the system strings of light began to spread, until they covered the entirety of it, slowly the strings passed each world and space station, passed the destroyed remains of defense ships and invader crafts alike, the radiation of the light disabling communications on every world.

Forcing ships that were traveling to have to either stop entirely or for their pilots to rely on their eyes to see where they were going, night sky's light up like if it was high noon until the shape of a strange castle began to emerge.

As the Batarians watched the strange ship, they laughed for it was nothing more to them than another batch of slaves, unfortunately for them a transmission was sent from the castle to their ships, when the players had attacked the previous world, they had found that one of the preferred methods of the batarians used, on races they had never encountered before, was sending several computer viruses to insect the aliens machinery.

Now that method and those viruses were being used against them, the castle instantly began to scan the batarian ships looking for anything that resembled human, those that caused a reaction were grabbed by the castles cables, the rest were immediately fired upon and destroyed.

It was pointless to attack a world that was already defeated, the players would find it hard for them to win any ground or get any help, from what people still lived on those worlds.

On the planet Shanxi, the few people that remained lived in a combination of fear and rage, fear for the aliens that might come and take them one day and rage for their inability to completely drive them off.

The Sistem Alliance Humanities defense, had been defeated and had not been seen in years, so at the end, it was every world for itself, one by one they fell now only Shanxi remained it was always the same pattern, the few computers or machines that were left went crazy and then the aliens would arrive and begin attacking people, before they were carried off into space never to be seen again.

In the ruins of a city, a boy hid alongside his only companion a dog that he was given for his birthday, the animal had saved his life more than one, when the radio of a nearby car began to screech they both hid inside one of the broken buildings and watched as something fell from the sky.


	5. Chapter 5

A ball of light fell from the sky, trail of black smoke and the roar of the burning air around it announced its arrival to the people below, the boy watched as one ball of fire fell into the distance far away never to be seen again, another flew far away and another, then another, then another until one fell near him.

The city shook the moment the ball of fire touched the ground, normally the boy would have run away, these were dangerous times after all, but his curiosity defeated his sense of fear and danger and it was for this reason that he alone would see the unthinkable.

With the only sound in the world being the barking of his pet dog, the boy witnessed several giant tanks rise from a hole in the ground made where the ball of fire hit the ground. Behind them were several men wearing strange armors that looked like knights, behind them men and woman riding horses and giant lizards followed.

Suddenly the ground shook as the screeching sound of metal grinding upon metal reached his ears and the boy felt himself tremble in fear, a giant made of metal rose from the hole in the ground, its massive metal feet breaking the concert beneath it. An entire arm seemed nothing more than three giant tubes, while the other held a massive glowing sword.

It stood there looking into the city, as if it was waiting for something, someone.

Men and woman began to walk out each wearing uniforms the boy had never seen before and holding strange and old looking guns, slowly the world began to run quiet again, as the people left the boy watched them disappear, them the metal giant moved and the world shook once more.

In space, drones moved into the captured batarian ships even as the castle drifted closer to the few space stations left, as the castle heard the stations attempted to defend themselves opening fire against the ever approaching castle, only for the mass accelerator rounds fired upon the castle, to bounce off the castles many shields.

Closer and closer the castle came until it was almost completely on top of the nearest space station, a single shot was fired to measure the shields on the space station, another was used to weaken them a d finally the last one broke right thru the station's armor allowing the player to enter it.

Meanwhile, the drones had managed to break into the captured batarian ships and actually seal the holes they had gone thru, preventing any dangerous decompression and loss of life, as they began to explore the metal halls of the alien spacecraft's, they sent videos back to the castle slowing the players to see, what exactly they were going to fight.

Unfortunately what they saw made only made their blood boil, humans both young and old, alongside animals were put in cages so small that the people had no way of moving, add to that the fact that every cage was on top of one another only made the situation more grim.

Only a few drones had any real form of weaponry, most had only a few shields while only possessing welding torches that they used to cut thru the ships armor, fortunately for the people inside the cages, one of the drones did have a marker with it and it was the moment the marker was placed on the metal floor that several players teleported into the ship.

Half began to open the cages and helped the people out of them, the other half, went hunting for the batarians.

They held onto their swords-guns-spears and energy blades and listened to the world around them, as the sound of their feet echoed thru the halls of the ship, as the players walked they could hear the cries of children and infants calling for their mothers and fathers.

Unfortunately, their cries would go unanswered.

Each players help screen marked the number of people inside the room they left behind, slowly that number was going down, as those left behind began to teleport the people into the safety of the flying castle.

Each footstep echoed through the halls of the ship, even as the temperature began to drop, the batarians had begun to mess with the climate of the ship in order to make it more difficult for the players to move inside it.

This became more and more clear as a freezing room led to one that was so hot, that it became difficult to walk thru it.

Yet still, the players marched on, until they were forced to equip oxygen masks when all of the air inside the ship was sucked out and all of the lights were finally turned off. It was only them that the batarians made themselves known.

Unfortunately for them, their surprise had no effect as the help screens the players poses picked up their presence long before a single shot was fired.

These events repeated themselves inside each captured batarian ship, until every batarian was killed.

Even as these events happened the castle began to fire upon the nearest space station, the moment the space station had a hole in it, several small drones were sent in and were immediately destroyed, however, unfortunately for the aliens inside the station one of the drones had a marker on it and the moment the drone was destroyed it activated.

The players, however, had seen the video of the drones immediately cut and so had something special prepared, the atmosphere was quickly leaving the station and since no human life signs could be picked up, they simply decided to let loose some of their more troublesome creatures onto the station.

Rats are a troublesome species, capable of eating almost anything, capable of living with ought much air and capable of cutting holes in almost anything, it's especially problematic when those same rats haven't eaten anything in weeks.

While true that the rats could and would chew and eat several parts of the station, the smell of raw meat would attract them, it didn't matter that the meat still had a pulse in it, or that it was meat that belonged to aliens they had never encountered.

No, what mattered to the rats was that they were hungry, truthfully the players would have to hunt down and kill every rat, but all they had to do was use the castles systems to locate them, something made easier with the few tracking devices placed onto the rats.

Entire groups of rats stopped moving cut apart by the space stations defenses, others by the batarians themselves, yet despite all of this some did reach the batarians and through the station's halls, the aliens screams echoed.

Slowly both the planets and the space stations began to regain control and both human and alien alike felt their eyes widen in shock. In a matter of hours, every station in space had fallen under the player's control and calls for help were being sent out in a loop, this time however it was from the batarians themselves.

[{}{}{}{}{}{  
Year's later these days would be known as the second contact war and be held as the days when Humanity would meet their long-lost cousins from space. Stories would be told that would outright seem fantastical in nature, like the stories of Old Earth Humanities original home.

One story, in particular, would be that of the Knights of The Blood Oath, while true that at the beginning of the second contact war, the main fight was both on and above Shanxi.

The people of the world would say that they arrived from a ball of fire that fell from the sky, the few batarian survivors of the first contact would say they came from nowhere, regardless of what the stories would say the results were the same.

Men and woman rose from a smoking crater and began to attack every batarian insight, whenever a Human was found they were captured and checked for any weapons, the population of this world was already far too broken to even dare raise their hands against the aliens, even when the explosive collars on their necks were removed.

So the knights of the blood soon found themselves having to both fend off any approaching batarians, while being forced to protect whatever people they could find.

People would say that during the first few weeks of the war, things were extremely complicated for them, for the simple yet hard reason that Humans need food and water to live, things that the batarians controlled entirely. Many would suspect that, the Players as they like to be called, dealt with this, by giving their own food to the people they had gathered.

Year's later a recording would be uncovered one that would both disturbed and motivate the Human Sistem Alliance, for it showed Heathcliff the leader of the Knights of the Blood Oath, single-handedly wipe out an entire Batarian battalion. The man's sword seemed to almost completely vanish whenever he swung it and even shots fired from Mass Accelerator canons brother the man's white medieval shield.

Truthfully the area held by the Knights of the Blood Oath was relatively small and would have never truly made an impact and would have gone completely unnoticed by the enslaved population of the world, had it not been for one particular issue.

Their original attack along with others like it on the nearby worlds, had been displayed by whatever communications device was still functional, this went for both batarian computers and human televisions/computers.

It would be beloved that this was a psychological attack from the players against the batarians and a way to give some hope to the now hopeless people, regardless of the case, it didn't work, as the attack only made the batarians act with more cruelty than ever before.

Still, as time passed as more and more people were gathered and taught to use whatever confiscated weapons the players took from the batarians, as well as learning how to use some of the players own weaponry the now freed people of that world began to slowly fight back the batarians.

They marched on, with guns-swords-kinetic barriers- medical shield and antique armor that provided little to no defense whatsoever, even as bombs were dropped upon them, even as the men and woman beside them became nothing more than paste of blood and burned meat, by a combination of mass accelerator shots fired by the batarians.

They did this for two reasons, one they had little to nothing left to live for and the other they knew the Knights of the Blood Oath were cutting thru entire armies alone. Each fight became more and more intense and casualties were high, even as the human defenders fell the batarian numbers seemed to grow.

Its said by both sides that the war truly changed when a roar not heard in hundreds of years by human ears echoed through the entire world, several giant armored lizards had emerged from the same crater the players had arrived in and immediately took to the skies.

Their fire breaths melted metal- ceramic and even made some weaponry completely useless, as any attack would just bounce off them. For the first time in generations, Humanity had ancient dragons at their side.

Few stories could ever compare to the wars fought on Shanxi, one, however, would forever stick out amongst the rest, as on the rocky world where the systems previous metals were dug, the team known as the Black Cats completely took over it in a single day.

It's unknown how they managed to do this but what is known, is that by the time the enslaved Human population was done with their tormentors, not even their advanced armors could remain in one peace.

[Planet Shanxi

The sound of breaking bones echoed through the now nearly deserted city, the bodies of aliens and Humans littered the streets, long since dead their rotting corpses released an ever-increasing smell of disease.

The once great skyscrapers were now only a fraction of their original size, each player held a deep breath as they walked, from space Aincrad attempted to gain access to the city's layout, however, both the satellites and the city's computers were corrupted with viruses.

"This forced the players to have to rely on their own help screens in order to make the much-needed map of the city.

(All space stations are under our control.) Said a player from inside Aincrad, to those on the planets below.

As the players walked clouds of dust rose into the air, making the smell of concrete and ash to lingerie and forced the players to cover their noses, just to keep the smell away.

[I'm starting to think that there isn't any point for us to put up a fight for this work.] Said one of the GunGale players. The players had separated into different groups so they could cover more ground and destroy any truly powerful alien strongholds.

Yet as the players walked they could find no signs of human life, the small number that were picked up by their help screens were at best one or two people.

"Stop," x10 said the leaders of the players.

"We will start setting up defenses here, if we go any further we risk losing what little ground we already have." X10 all of the leaders said in their own ways, each of the players however only moved aside and waited for their own giant robots to move past them.

The ground shook as the machines moved further into the city, just to scout out a little further into the city, slowly the players began to move wrecked cars and giant chunks of concrete setting up a mixed match defensive wall


	6. Chapter 6

**Slavers never, the players would never sink so low. Goblins- Lizards and other undesirable creatures are terminated daily, better to put the pest to good use, than to risk perfectly good lives doing dangerous things.**

 **Don't be fooled by their attempts to imitate Human families and societies, those are all lies.**  
 **So your answer is no they aren't slavers**

(Shanxi character change Kirito)  
The sounds of explosions and gunfire now echoed through the city, from time to time buildings would be struck by stray fire causing small chunks of concert and ceramic to fly off, Kirito could only try to keep his breath calm, this mission was to be done for about a month.

To the players, this was nothing more than just another raid, Aincrad was the main game this was just an event, some godforsaken dungeon that needed to be concerned.

At least that was what Kirito kept mentally telling himself.

He would go back into the castle, back into that cage that had served as his prison for so long and when this was all over he wouldn't leave his wife side ever again.

Asuna his wife had been ordered to stay behind, women and men that had children were separated by their guilds or teams. People told themselves that it was for the good of their children, partially that was true, but in reality, no one could bear to ruin the lives of the few that had managed to start new lives.

The knew hit them both like a wall of bricks just being dropped on them, his was pregnant, unfortunately, by the time they had been told the good news, they both had already agreed to go down and fight, so he found himself fighting in a world that wasn't his own.

(I'm reading your health, we don't have enough mechs, so you better not lose that one) one of the other mech pilots said.

(If you take to much damage I'll drop a marker and go help you.) Said another pilot, recognizing that if one of them fell now the players moral would drop significantly.

In a split second, Kirito drew his right sword and felt the blade hit something, he twisted his body, left- right- jumped back- role to one side and to another, these weren't stray gunshots that were thrown randomly about.

No someone or a group of enemies were deliberately aiming at him and it had only been his instincts that had saved his life.

Suddenly a gunshot from behind made him jump and for a moment Kirito swore that this was how he died, then when that moment passed, he found himself staring at a small explosion almost directly in front of him. Kirito felt his lips begin to stretch until he had what resembled a smile on his face, there was a sniper closeby.

(I'll cover you black swordsman, but I recommend you get your hands on some sort of shielding system and a gun or two) the sniper said to Kirito, the help screens messaging system was now nothing more than a makeshift military radio system.

(We're pinned! We need some help over here) a team screamed.

(Roger, well be there in two minutes try to hold out until then) another team answered the first teams calls for help.

(What the hell are you doing black swordsman, quite standing there like an idiot and go kill the aliens) the sniper screamed to Kirito who realized he had been standing in the same spot he thought would serve as his last resting spot.

Kirito shook his head and began to walk slowly, despite all of the gunfire flying around and explosions from whatever grenades were being used, Kirito found that he was now able to walk to the spot where the aliens that had been firing at him.

It was there that he found them, half burned and still whimpering in pain were a group of five four-eyed aliens.

(Leave half their weapons, take their shields and guns) the sniper said to kirito, after all, it had been the man's explosive round that had saved his life, so the man demanded the pay for his efforts.

Kirito lifted his sword and brought it down onto the fallen bodies of the aliens, at this point killing them was more of a mercy than anything else, yet even as kirito drew back his sword and brought it down onto another alien, he somehow felt like if the world was getting quieter.

It was only when he finally lifted up his sword and used a rag he carried with him to wipe away the alien blood, that he realized that at some point he had grabbed ahold of a genetic shield generator, a mass accelerator pistol and about two grenades.

The sensation of a hand on his shoulder made kirito turn his head, his heart rate at a fighting speed only for it to quickly calm down when he saw a human face looking at him.

"They aren't Human Black Swordsman, they don't deserve our sympathy or mercy. Just look around of what they've done" the man said as he picked up an alien gun that resembled a heavy machine gun.

"Do you know how to use that thing?" The man said and Kirito only shook his head

The man immediately took the pistol from kirito and drew a sniper laser from his pocket, he immediately put the sniper scope on the pistol and began to randomly fire it, until the shots that were fired hit the area the laser was aimed at.

He immediately handed the pistol back to kirito before hitting his shoulder, thereby wordlessly telling kirito it was time to move forward.

The two of them walked carefully now, they no longer ran, it was dangerous for that, red dots randomly appear and disappear meaning that even if the enemy was picked up if they surrendered or by whatever other reason there was, the help screen would simply ignore them.

After an hour of nonstop walking, kirito saw how the sniper that was with him completely stop moving, as he walked up to the man, did the organization that the players had in fact bitten off more than they had wanted had completely set in.

There in the distance was not one but two mechs fighting, the sky around them was blackened by thick clouds of smoke from the fires beneath them, regardless thousands of tiny lights flew off the mechs before exploding in mid-air, revealing swarms of mechanical drones, that tried to avoid the missiles fired at them.

The land below the mechs was no longer whatever it was before, whatever it was before was now meaningless. It was now an ocean of flames, and if the ground had any hope of ever being remotely useful for anything, that hope was getting smaller by the second.

A combination of gunfire, flamethrowers and missiles were gutting the planet right where the mechs stood.

Not only was it because of the mechs weaponry, but with every alien tank or explosive used it meant that any hope of ever truly rebuilding this city would be gone by the time the fighting finally ended.

(Aincrad /Guil/team leaders )  
"The reports had come in when the players had chosen to help the people of that world some of the guild leaders and team captains had instinctively moved to gather anyone with any sort of armored vehicles or truly dangerous beast.

Finally, the results had come in and it wasn't something promising, the ones that had any really dangerous animal or golem were few and far between, there were more but all of them were incredibly underpowered, either by lacking any real form of armor, hielding or weaponry.

Most of the strongest animals were dead and even if the players had moved to strengthen their recently captured beasts, leveling them up was something that took time.

The effects of the final boss were still being felt, not only that but another issue had made itself known, repairing damaged machinery was no longer almost instantaneously, no now it was a long and painful process, that required resources for it to be done.

Then there was the issue that people had to learn how to pilot any machine and whatever weaponry they used had to be reloaded, the same went for any damaged equipment and armor.

l of this told the leaders of their respected guilds and teams that they were severely lacking in raw materials.

Like it or not but the few hours that had already passed had shown that even if there was only a small number of aliens in each planet, they could not afford to leave their spoils of war to the remaining Humans.

No any weaponry that was damaged needed to be collected so it could be repaired and keep being used, they couldn't afford to lose anything at the moment. There was no guarantee that they could make it again anytime soon.

The N.P.C's inside Aincrad could be hired to mine for precious metals inside the castle, but it wouldn't be enough, factories were needed and that was something they didn't have. Fortunately, all of this could be fixed by taking full advantage of the factories on both planets, the space stations and inside Aincrad, with any luck they could get some of the factories on the planets below to become functional again.

Then there was another issue they had to take into consideration, if they went on ahead and did this, it would switch things to a wartime setting, things like the economy, food production and even social nature would be affected by this.

Even if they somehow managed to keep things under wraps, the natives of Aincrad would take notice, the fact that the adventurers had started to either vanish or act differently.

(Character change Asuna)

She listened to the cries of the infants in the distance, she drank a hot cup of coffee, she wanted a cup of tea, but she couldn't afford to do so she needed to remain awake.

There was too great of a risk for her to go down and fight there was to create of a risk for her to end up having a miss carriage, she wanted to argue about it but there was a harness in the person's eyes when they told her to remain behind.

Even if she could come back to life, there was no guarantee that the baby would come back with her and even if it did, there was a chance he or she would come back already fully formed or unformed.

The danger was just to create for the infant.

Still, she could do her part, at least that's what she told herself.

Most of the refugees were kept in the basement, due to the thick walls and many monsters there was no threat of the criminals getting to the already traumatized people.

The place was separated into multiple different parts, terminal and critical were kept separate for obvious reasons, the people could due at any moment and only those specialized in healing were allowed there.

She herself moved from the resting area that was more like a living area, she took healing potions to the minimal risk area and walked through the nursery where many of the infants were being kept.

Twelve hours had passed since the mission had started and already people were starting to crack under the pressure. Several crates had been sent in, apparently, the aliens had fought like mad dogs to defend them, but when they were teleported unto Aincrad they had been sent in with a note attached to them.

Only those with a strong sense of will should open them, like usual there was someone who thought highly of themselves and open the boxes, what they found was a truly frightening sight, millions of infants were kept in a time of incubators.

The children were going to become slaves or worse yet food for the aliens.

She felt herself begin to cry even as she listened to their cries and she soon found herself unknowingly holding her stomach. Asuna soon found herself breaking down crying but when she was done and looked around the only thing she said was.

" My coffee has gotten cold." There was no one here to comfort her, her husband was done there fighting for his life and she was here crying over something that might not ever happen.


	7. Chapter 7

(Shanxi Orbital Station/ Defense platform )

A team of eight people walked through the now empty space station, they had hunted down and killed all of the dog-sized rats, a task made easier by the fact that the pests had tracking devices put on them. Now, however, they only had one job left, activate the space stations main computer and gain control over both the communications network and the factory that was inside the station, itself.

Each player had been forced to wear some form of gas mask for the stench inside the space station was nearly unbearable, the air filtration devices had either long since broken down or had been turned off for so long that the tech of both the original Human inhabitants rotting stench, had mixed in with the rats putrid smell.

Still, as they arrived at the main computer they found it completely undefended, no passwords were needed, in fact, any form of device keeping intruders away was none existent, the only thing that was out of the ordinary was a bright red bottom that was constantly blinking.

(Enemies eliminated) said one of the mech pilots, who's machine was being repaired.

As he looked at his help screen to check up on the battle on the planet below he couldn't help but think, how incredible it was that the mechs had covered so much ground.

Sure the mechs were impressive machines, but to be able to go from one side of a city to the other side over and over again was impressive, already they were beginning to abandon the city's and spread out into the unmapped lands.

(Stazione one we're on the bridge) said one of the other team's that was inside one of the other space stations.

(Same here) answered another team

(Activating the Stations computers, now) announced an overly eager voice.

Instinctively the team leader pressed the red button and the space stations computers came back to life, unfortunately, what the team would see would reveal to them that they had indeed been too late to save the people of these worlds.

Videos of planets that the players themselves having never laid eyes on before were shown to them and do to the fact that the space stations had several drones showing live footage to both the guild leaders and the research and development team.

Five years of constant fighting had broken most of the people's wills and it was only in Humanities birth realm that people were still fighting for their freedom and lives.

All of a sudden it began to make sense, the fact that there was no real defense fleet for the aliens, the fact that the people below are barely having any problems and the simple undoubtable truth that there are hardly any people on those worlds below.

These planets were already conquered and what they had encountered was the cleanup crew, just getting whatever they had left behind, before completely abandoning the now useless worlds.

For a brief moment, the player's help screen gave a small glow and changed into one better suited for navigating space, on it multiple worlds were marked, these were the alien's worlds. The problem was, that there were different colors for them, conquered- client- warring- and high risk.

A light hum began to filter through the space station, the factory and its forges onboard had been reactivated.

The computers began to show the space stations doors open up and begin to draw in one of the captured alien ships, next to the video the broken tenants of the planets defense fleet was being brought in and immediately dropped into a nanotech poll to break them down for the much-needed materials.

Another computer showed the remaining defense ships that could still be used.

The players began to exhale, if they did this there would be no turning back, something as simple as a computer chip would change everything in the long run. For a brief moment, the team leaders hesitated but placed the chip on the computer none the less.

Instantly the blueprints for railguns, plasma cannons, low-level shields, the space stations computers were already looking for ways to mix the new technologies brought in with those it already had.

(Aincrad Guild and Team leaders meeting)  
The feeling of the room was comparable to one that had a person aiming a gun to a completely defenseless individual.

This was going to be a problem, for one they could just ignore the entire thing and leave the people of these worlds with both the technology and ships they had or were already building and repairing.

The four-eyed aliens were slavers and that meant that they needed to have clients for them to sell the slaves.

Apparently, there were worlds so dangerous that the aliens stayed away, others were still fighting, but what worried the guild and team leaders was what the star map showed.

The location of Earth and the fact that the Soul Sistem was classified as a war area.

( Shanxi character change Kirito)  
Kirito walked forward, it had already been hours since they had arrived, the effects of the mechs ongoing fight was affecting everything now, so much so that they had to pull them back. The smell of ash now lingered in the air, so much so that he could taste it.

His body was stronger than the one a normal person would have had and it was for that reason that he was able to keep going when a normal person would have fallen under complete exhaustion, slowly the red markers all over the city were either vanishing or turning green, meaning that they had surrendered.

Like it or not the mission was complete and this planet now belonged to them, it was time to begin to rebuild the city, but in all honesty, Kirito himself, didn't know what for. Just fixing the foundation itself was something that would take years, not to mention all of the electronics and plumbing.

Hell the buildings themselves were little more than rubble and those that weren't destroyed were littered with bodies.

Ruined cars, ships, power suits and weapons were scattered all over the place, so just rebuilding the city alone was a risk on its own and soon it would get a lot worse, there was no way that the refugees would be allowed to stay onboard and there were too many people involved in this mission for anyone to simply accept to leave without getting any real form of reward.

Kirito looked at his help screen and noticed that already things like power armor, mass accelerators, genetic shields, tanks and so forth, there were even things like Virtual Intelligence and personal photographic computers that needed to be attached to the wrist of a person.

On an interesting note, things like hover tanks were being put up for the players to buy but from what Kirito could see very few people were trying to buy them at the moment.

Already the computers inside Aincrad had begun to access the information the colony had and Kirito didn't like what he was seeing, it seemed that every news station or channel be it entertainment or informative was covering the war with the aliens, at least until they entered the system, then everything went dark.

Before the players had walked into the planet several markers had been dropped onto the planet, wherever the markers had landed the players had immediately made sure to reinforce the area around them.

Now the refugees were starting to come out of those markers, it seems like the guild leaders wanted to get rid of them as fast as possible. Already his help screen was beginning to show multiple lights coming from the area the markers were located, for now, they would serve as the people's stronghold.

The sound of concert falling from a broken building, made him look around for a moment, Aincrad had so many memories in it, it was there he made his first friends, it was there he had met his wife, where he had learned to fight and become who he is now.

But it also had so many dangers could they really raise a child inside it, inside the same place that had killed so many people, granted that this planet wasn't any better, his surroundings certainly proved that.

He couldn't help but look at the blue sky and notice the black clouds of smoke, he was going to be a father...

He was going to be a father...

The cold wind blew behind him, while the hot air moved slowly, somehow the chemicals lingered in the air.

They would have to arm the people of this world now, truthfully they didn't have to, in fact, they had already helped them enough and any more help would only say that the planet was in fact now under their control and by extension so are the people living on it.

They had the technology, if not to defend the entire planet to at least defend entire cities and a few continents.

( Incoming Guild/ team leaders message wide communication)

 **..."** There's no real easy way to say this so I'll just get straight to the point. The reason we sent an immediate notice to everyone is this, from the information we gained from the alien's ships, all of the humans on the colonies had already been captured and sold as slaves.

Everyone that has seen how the aliens treat people can get an idea of what fate awaited those people." 1 said

"These people are nothing to us, we don't owe or have any connection to them. So we have no reason to get them back, not only that but if we do go and get them back we will be making a lot of enemies." Said another guild leader.

"Finally there is another issue, we know where this dimensions/games version of Earth is located and from the looks of it, the aliens do too, but if we go and help them, then we risk losing the only planer we have under our control and putting Aincrad in danger."

"It's for this reason that we will put it up for a vote, so it will be up to the majority to decide everyone's fate."

"Anyone that wants to go and help the people taken by the aliens press the green light that will appear after this message is done."

"Those that chose to stay and keep what we have already captured push the red light."

"Those that want to go and help the Earth, press the blue light and finally those that don't want to participate press the white light, but be aware that regardless whether you want to participate or not, if Aincrad is attacked you will have to defend it.

"We understand that the mining world is still being fought over. There is a lot of cleaning up to do." All three of the guild leaders said before the lights began to glow and pass by the screen.

At the end people chose not to go and help anyone, the risks were just too high and they neither had the numbers, not the weaponry needed to fight in a real war at the moment.


	8. Chapter 8

[Point of view change Earth]  
They were pinned down by the enemy, he could hear his men opene fire from the next room, just how long had they been here defending this God forsaken building hoping for some form of help to arrive.

It wouldn't and even if it did, the likelihood of it even managing to actually succeed in getting them out was so low, that it was better to leave them to their fate and concentrate on more important things.

The building was nothing more than an old abandoned nanotech manufacturing plant, it was an outdated factory but at this point, anything would help.

Long gone were the time's people went to nightclubs, went to movies or simply opened a book and relaxed, now every moment was spent in fear, fear of the invaders.

The light glow of the computer monitor told me, my teams, electrician had managed to provide power to the factory and the beeping sound of the computers coming to life told me that the team's hacker had managed to break thru any firewalls that had been placed by the owners of the factory.

Instantly, the entire factory came to life.

"Captain!" Screamed the computer whiz.

"What's wrong? " I answered the hacker.

"You're going to have to look at this." He told me.

It was a risk to leave my position at the moment, but if that guy was telling me I had to look at something, it no doubt had to be important.

As I walked up to him and looked at the monitor, I couldn't help but stare at the words written on them. Receiving Shanxi orbital platform forge designs... Processing.

As I looked at the designs coming in, I couldn't help but look at the unholy abominations of antic tank designs combined with highly advanced technology, some of which I had never seen before.

All of a sudden the factory engines began to come to life, as the nano pools began bobble until smoke began to rise, in what was nearly three minutes the pool of nanomachines had been drained and the bottom side of a tank was extracted from it by a massive claw, again the pool was filled with nanomachines before it began to bobble again and the second half of the tank was released from it.

The monitor in front of me displayed multiple weapons that were at one point thought impossible for them to be built on something as small as a tank.

Railguns and laser canons served as the tables sidearms, they were three on the front and two on the back, while the tanks main gun was a large barrel that was surprisingly called long-range plasma discharger.

That was the things offense, its defense was even more insane, energy shields, kinetic shields and as strange as it seemed it looked like someone had attached the front part of a bulldozer to it.

"Captain the thing can be piloted by two people." Said the tech wiz as he pointed at a layer of text that had shown up on the monitor.

Processing... All of a sudden thousands of small antic firearms were shown one after another, they were primitive considering that they used bullets so they needed more resources to be kept firing and I was about to dismiss the information shown to me when something stuck out over everything else in the screen.

Standard issue Lass Gun, a portable laser gun or Lass gun for short, it used no ammunition and it was battery powered, that same street could be recovered by sunlight or putting it right next to a fire for it to charge, in fact, if one was crazy enough they could just throw the thing into a fire and pull them out when they were done recharging.

There was only one problem, there was just enough material for the nanites to build either another thank or several dozens guns, we lacked the men needed to use those gins and even if we made them there was a high risk that the enemy would take them and use them against our own people.

So I touched the computer screen and chose to make another tank, we would have to fight to defend this place so it was better we had some form of heavy defense. I signaled to my men to go and check on the tank that had already been built and the two abandoned their positions, as they injected the tank they found that there was an opening on the back and one on the top.

The tank gave a small glow and what looked like a bubble engulfed the tank, no doubt it was the thing's shields coming to life.

All of sudden the thing began to move, to think there would be a day that a tank would be silent at it moved, it was time to see what the thing could do and as the factories, doors opened a rain of gunfire greeted the thing.

The tank responded with a combination of lights that seemed to turn wherever they hit into a massive crater, all of a sudden one of the alien's ships began to open fire and it was only because of the child's that the tank survived the things main gun.

The tanks main gun began to light up before it let out a bright white light and with a single shot, the alien ship was brought.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing, our best ships couldn't take one of those things down with ought having to use a combination of heavy guns and missiles.

I smiled as I looked at this, we could finally put up a real fight, not only that the colonies at least one of them was still fighting, weren't alone in this. I smiled, there was a chance we could win this, now all we had to do was hold long enough for reinforcement to arrive.

(Character change Klein )

We were gathered in our guild house watching tv, when Dynnam walked in and called us all to him, he lifted up his right hand, as he tried to show us his new personal wrist computer. As we all looked at the thing he pressed a button on it, and a naked green lady came out.

The woman was transparent but Dynnam pressed another button making her green transparent form become darker and change color, he made her turn green, blue, red and yellow.

So you bought yourself an Omni tool" I told Dynnam as I looked at holographic woman that was now back to her original green color, but she was no longer transparent.

He gave a wide grin and began to show it off. "Apparently, she can learn in time my preferences, like what I normally look up, what shows I like and so on." He paused to get his breath before continuing his rant.

"Plus if I want her to learn things that might be useful, I can download things like how to pilot ships, how to hack doors and so on." He answers me.

"Speaking bought buying things, are we going to pike up any missions today or are we just going to lazy around all day again?" Issin asked us.

I stopped for a moment and looked at any missions that might have been put up, there was one that paid alright and the level of danger was minimal, even if we died we could try again this time more prepared

"All right, I found one capturing goblins." I said as I looked at the details writing on the mission. "Apparently they want the things alive and are willing to pay extra for any goblin children that we bring in." I said as I looked at the notice.

No one argued "Alright. " I said as I pressed the accept button and with that, we were out the door headed to a nearby area we knew goblins tended to gather.


	9. Chapter 9

**[All players that are in missions within the Aincrad are to abandon your current missions...Processing... ...]**

"Alright I'll cut straight to the point, like it or not we're just one ship, we may have defenses and a capable fighting force. Like it or not but the enemy has conquered multiple planets and destroyed so many armies that put them completely ahead of us."

"Everything from, resources, soldiers, communications and even transportation, they completely dwarf us."

"Like it or not should the aliens find us we will be beaten, your mission is simple, go to every conquered planet and reactivate the factories and the space stations."

"Even now we have already sent drones to every one of the worlds we have found so far, nearly every one of them are in distant stars, that had it not been for the ship we have repaired would have been impossible to reach"

 **[Transmission terminated]**

"We looked at the video and an alert on our help screens told us that our mission had ended and we had failed.

We were about to walk back to the teleporter when all of a sudden the world changed and we stood in front of the teleportation platform at the center of town.

I didn't like this, not because we were on the first floor, but for the reason that this was a nearly exact copy of that fateful day when they had all been forced into the death game.

"The mission is simple, avoid fighting at all cost, we can't let the enemy know about us, at least not yet."

"Take a crystal and place it on the control panel of the factories, the ships or the space station, the crystal will do the rest" a man said.

A crystal appeared in front of me and when I turned around, I noticed that the rest of my team was already holding crystals just like it.

We didn't even get a chance to say anything, instantly the moment my hand made contact with the crystal we were teleported to another world, I couldn't believe my eyes, there was nothing here, just a world in ruins.

There were remains of cars and really everything that one would expect to find in a city, but not even animals were around, even the sky seemed like if it was losing its color.

We walked to the nearest factory, none of them know what it looked like, nor did we know what to expect to find, but we found a factory and placed the crystal on the control panel.

We walked past people, animal, and alien corpses until every factory in the city had been reactivated.

The moment the power was restored to the city, there were sirens and explosions in the distance, but there wasn't any sound left, there weren't any people left on this world.

For the next four months, they moved from city to city, reactivating cars or ships, but it was always the same, not a single sign of any person left in this world.

By the time we had already reactivated the space stations, we all just wanted to go home, to get as far away from this world, none of us said anything, but when we were about to leave an alert was displayed in front of us.

 **[Deploying drones]**

I could feel the hot tears fall on my cheeks as I watched dozens of drones move into the city and begin to repair whatever could be fixed and move whatever wasn't salvageable, in space the drones were pulling ships into the space stations and either repairing them or breaking them down for parts.

I turned to look at my team and they were crying too, the higher-ups were right, we are in over our heads, but for now, in time this world would be fixed and eventually both the people and the animals would come back.

The world changed and we were back on Aincrad, in front of us hanging in the sky was a map of the universe displaying blue circles turning green, next to it was a list of conquered worlds.

The blue worlds were already running out and the green worlds would soon be next.

[ Earth]

The computers had begun to flare long lost words had suddenly begun to send in transmissions again, and everything from what had gone on those worlds to the mysterious knights and soldiers that had shown up and begun to repair everything by using their drones.

Already whatever resources could be spared were being used to copy the mysterious knights and soldiers weaponry, whoever these aliens were they seemed to want to help, but from what the videos showed their numbers were few and far between.

Had the videos of Shanxi not been sent first, they would have thought that the aliens were just taking the worlds they had won, but no, the videos being sent from that world showed the aliens helping the survivors rebuild their lives.

It was this very fact that troubled everyone present, after all this time they had finally found a group of aliens that would help them.

Suddenly a video was sent in and it showed a world at war, the aliens were winning, until a group of knights wearing white armor appeared leading them was a knight wearing red armor and holding a greate white shield.

Everyone agreed they needed to make contact, but the question was how and what did they have to offer.


	10. Chapter 10

Slowly, to slowly the earth's defenses were being strengthened, while true the new weapons designs were a gods send, there weren't many factories left, and if there was a factory that could build a single laser gun or a tank, its resources were stretched so thin that to build just one tank, the people had to risk dragging whatever remains of ships or armors they could find.

Maybe in a couple of months, the earth could fight off all of the invaders, already the one ship they had built had so many weapons that it had single-handedly kept the area around them safe, but it was just one fighter and the invaders were a lot, a lot more than it.

Hell, the only reason it was still flying was, its shields, the fighter had been hit so many times that people were wondering if its pilot would ever want or dare pilot another ship ever again.

Still, the world leaders all watched the videos whenever they could, they watched as the drones cleaned and rebuilt the cities before more and more people were returned to them and they watched as more and more the various factories recycled everything, nothing was being wasted.

Soon a realization hit them, the aliens the ones that had taken over the lost worlds, were preparing themselves for something big, no one expected to be saved, but at least they now hoped that when they met the aliens it would be on pleasant terms.

The days passed quickly, and painfully slow at the same time, a second fighter took to the sky and several tanks were now fighting, Humani

human soldiers now used the lass gun, a person could still find people using the old world chemical propelled weapons and even the mass effect weapons that were widely used when humanity began to explore space, but the lass gun was just a better option than even the plasma weapons.

It didn't need ammunition and the guns themselves could be repaired with anything lying around and still be in perfect working condition.

Months became weeks and weeks became days, soon both the moon and earth had their own fighters and managed to stop the invaders from making planetfall.

Mars was already in the proses of saying the hell with space and fortified its cities with so many interplanetary canons that no ship could get near it.

Humanities' first colony had truly become a god of war, everything was being used just to defend it.

Despite all of this the videos kept coming in, humanities allies were finally moving, after five years of being on the losing side, humanity had friends and they had given us ways of defending ourselves and now they were moving.

Kirito

The war had ended a few weeks ago, most of the aliens had surrendered when their ships had suddenly stopped working, so it was up to the cleanup crew below to deal with whatever resistance was left on the five planets, thankfully there weren't many aliens willing to fight.

So everything moved slowly, let the drones rebuild and then let the people down, unfortunately, the fighting wouldn't stop for a while, because the aliens were invaders, they would eventually want their planets and in all honesty, it would have surprised no one if Aincrad was attacked.

So it wasn't a surprise no one argued when the guild leaders decided to take control of the already conquered worlds the aliens had left behind and use whatever resources they had on them to arm themselves.

Thankfully whatever Human survivors were left didn't put up much of a fight and were now living their lives.

Asuna was happily humming to herself as she drank some warm tea, I wanted to say something to her but, she wouldn't listen to me no matter what I said.

A notification had been sent in, all available players were to go to the still fighting worlds and deal with the situation there, the mission was meant for getting the one planet anyone onboard Aincrad would even care about.

All available players were to help defend the Earth and make an alliance and that meant Aincrad was moving.

There were no discussions to be had, even the planets they had helped knew about it, but when the people wanted to argue, they were just told by the guild leaders, that like it or not they needed help.

Already every ship above every world that didn't have anyone living on it was heading to their location, with them was every drone, tank, meck and robotic soldier, there was no point in defending planets that didn't have anyone living on them.

Half of them would remain behind to defend the planets that did have people living on them, the other half would come with us.

Hours passed and Aincrad moved closer to a giant tuning fork-like device, when the last defense bot was onboard did aincrad make contact with the device and in an instant, they arrived in a familiar-looking sight.

Everyone in the flying castle turned space ship, had seen the solar system when they were in middle school or at least a drawing of it.

Any attempts of making a surprise entry were forgotten as every ship and drone were let loose, no one would make planetfall for five days, even when dozens of virus were released and attacked the alien's computers, they didn't stop shooting.

One would think that making allies would have been hard, but somehow, the people on these worlds were more than happy to us, we soon found out why, however, we had unwillingly given an untold number of new technologies to the people here and us showing up here must have confirmed something for them.

Whatever it was none of us knew.

Negotiations ended quickly, everything within the system would remain under earth control, while several of the retaken worlds would all be under Aincrads control.

I didn't understand why any part of the negotiation proceedings was being displayed publickly, but regardless, they went quickly.

Repair, strengthen the defenses and begin the counter asult, each side would have a single place the other couldn't enter.

For the Sol system, the Earth, Humanities cradle world was completely of limits to the players and for everyone else, Aincrad was off-limits.

As for the five worlds the ones on the other side of the tuning fork-like machine, those would be neutral grounds, a place where trade could occur between our two groups.

From what the representatives said to pleyers\ ambassadors there were people on the other planets already using one or a lot of different kinds of technologies we had released.

It was them that had made contact with the earth and were asking for help.

This was what had Asuna so upset, from the beginning the players didn't want to enter a war they had already seen to much bloodshed and the guild leaders had now forced them into another meaningless war.


	11. Chapter 11

[Speech change]

I watched as the aliens walked in front of us, men and women dressed in old m, medieval armors, tight bodysuit, power armor, and even old-world ceramite plating.

I wanted to called them Human and had I not seen with my own eyes the vast amount of data, that had been gifted to us by them, I would have stubbornly said that they were Humans from a long lost colony that had forgotten their origins or had been altered by some alien race from some sort of cruel alien race from a cold part of the universe.

I would have been wrong, however.

No man had managed to create such wonders like energy shields that could resist laser weaponry, not even our artificial intelligence had come up with such devices as a machine that could make instant communication from one planet to another without the use of the mass relays.

And yet these people, these things that had gotten Humanities contact package and molded their appearance to what they thought we dressed and looked like had.

It was obvious that they must have picked up on the old transmissions sent into space long ago, after why else would they be dressed in such a ridiculous way.

A single ship, perhaps a ship dedicated for the first contact with new race had become the difference between Humanities downfall and its survival as a free race.

Even if the aliens left now, the vast amount of data given to us by them would ensure that we could and would eventually win this war.

...But what then, there are more aliens and from the attacks on Humanities colonies none of them were friendly, perhaps this was why they had helped us, a race that looked similar to them.

Did they think we were a long lost colony of theirs? It didn't matter, not for now anyway, perhaps in the future, it would but now, we had to gather our strength, lick our wounds and when the time comes it would be Humanity who would rise and take its rightful place in the universe.

I stand here alone, even as the mixture of human and alien ships circle through the air, I know that none of them are being piloted, drones that's all that they were.

I know that my next action will either get me killed or will set me on a path where no matter what I do anything I do will be seen as an act of cruelty.

I look at my Omni tool and I notice its orange color seems brighter and darker, the color is a dark orange but the image on the screen is bright, I can feel my hand tremble even as I move closer to the screen and for some reason, my hand stops moving.

...I press the button

The only thing I can do is stare at the screen as the recording is spread throughout the extranet.

"To all of Humanity, we are going through dark times, don't give up hope. Rise up and take your rightful place amongst the stars"

"Rize, we will win this war and become the rulers of space, don't give up hope rise" the transmission repeated itself, it showed the battle for earth, mars, the moon, all of the new weaponry, tanks and ships already coming out of the factories.

He hoped that every man, woman, and child in those distant worlds would see it, because, after today, he would no longer be himself, he would be a ghost, an Illusive man amongst the starts.

Even as I stand here I wonder if the people on earth are getting the recording, if the people in the conquered worlds, the refugee fleets that are scattered throughout space, if those on the war-torn planets are viewing any of it.

Are the mining ships in the asteroids seeing any of this, are any of them seeing us finally win back our freedom.

I wonder if the aliens are seeing what humanity is seeing, especially considering the last recording sent through the star net, a recording of a knight, a soldier, a man wearing a power suit, whipping out an entire alien army without any backup.

The recording finally stops "Your not alone" is the last thing said and shown in the recording.

This was my last day, from now on my job will be to protect everyone, even if that means being hated for it, I'm no longer a soldier, nor am I a citizen of the earth and its colonies, no now I'm the man that deals with things that have to be dealt with even if the military and the people refuse to do so.

Thanks to the fact that the extranet and the star net are connected I can see everything from my computers at home, home, that word doesn't have a meaning anymore, everything there is gone and any family I had was taken that day.

Even as I walk back home, no to my base, I can still hear the people cheering, the war is over we've won they say, they all know it a lie, but for now, they just want to celebrate the fact that the only troops of their homeland.

I can see the space stations already pumping out repaired ships and breaking down old alien and human ships that are to far gone, the old space stations of the past, the ruined remains of a forgotten people that looked into the stars and wondered what could be out there.

What would they have said, if they could see what the stars held for us, would they wonder at our creations or would they cry after seeing everything that was lost.

I can see the new scorpion tanks of mars alongside its mechs, Saturns defense force standing side by side as the representatives of our allies arrive to meet them.

Every planet in the sol system is greeting them with a handshake and army ready to fire.

A single image is sent through the star net, its the worse planet of them all, its said to be surrounded by alien worlds and its also said to be in the one place where if there are people that can be rescued, it's going to be there.

[character change]


	12. Chapter 12

[point of view change]

If one were to ask the people of earth or the sol system just how much things could change in a short amount of time, they would only receive a look filled with rage, sadness, and disgust.

The people of sol were fractured and yet united by their pain.

In a matter of months, they had been on the losing side of an alien invasion, received help from other aliens, had their hames their worlds destroyed and were now having them restored.

The people could see it themselves, those that somehow were able to escape the aliens attacks could remember Humanities journey into the stars and how they hoped for a brighter future, others could only remember the years of fear and war that the aliens brought., and now a new generation was being born, that itself had a division.

Some children would remember the aliens that looked like Humans and helped save them, while others would only know that the aliens were always their allies.

Jane Sheppard couldn't help but tremble, it was her first time seeing an Aiincrad dropship land, the ship wasn't smooth like an alliance ship of the past, nor was it a hard-edged machine that was covered in weapons like new warships that were being manufactured for the counter-assault everyone was preparing for.

No, the ship was a mixture of both, it had a smooth exterior, but in certain points, there were edges and sharp points, she didn't doubt that the ship had more than enough firepower to defend itself should it need to, but try as she might she couldn't see anything that looked like a weapon.

The only reason she was here was simply formality noting more, the Aincradians were personally delivering a piece of technology that wasn't in any of the many designs they had given them.

A teleportation platform, like it or not resources were scarce and despite everything, that was either destroyed or broken being scavaged for parts to repair or make new things, materials were still lacking sending ships to different parts of space wasn't an option at the moment.

So once again the aliens offered a solution, they would lend not one but several teleporters to the alliance and from there the alliance could send is people to mine or plant whatever they needed, however, the teleporters had a time lime and when it was reached, the alliance would have to return them, to the Aincradians.

Needless to say this sent alarm bells through the sol system, anyone with half a brain understood that despite all of the new weaponry, all of the new shields, ships, and armors, in a single move the aliens had rendered all of that useless.

No one was stupid enough to give something like the teleporters away unless they had something better already, that meant that if the aliens wanted to they could bring the Sistem alliance, the Sol system, and every Human world to its knees and there would be no stopping them.

And yet despite that, they dint.

A door opened and a crated was lowered by several robots, they were strange things they had the top halves of that resembled Human bodies, yet the bottom half was a floating orb.

The robots placed the crate in front of her, returned to the ship and the ship left, there were no conversations, no words of warning, nothing, they just left.

As she watched the ship leave she briefly wonder about the few warships the System Alliance was sending out into space, those ships' purpose was to see if any of the old colonies could be helped before the main assault began.

Regardless she activated a robotic forklift and carried the crate into the warehouse, where several scientists were waiting.

[Kirito]

I watched as Asuna slept, her stomach had grown and was already so big that she had to stay off her feet, it had been a rough couple of months for the two of them, at times Asuna would cry about Yui, their daughter that had died back when Aincrad was nothing more than a game.

He was forced to leave her side at times, like it or not he was now a soldier, granted he didn't have the title, a team or anything that would make him a soldier, but whenever a city of someplace had to be taken from the aliens he would be called and deployed.

Perhaps it was better for him to say that he was now nothing more than a mercenary, paid to kill, he had already sent out word that he wouldn't be going on any more missions, Asuna would soon give birth and she would need him to take care of her and their child.

Thankfully more than one guild leader agreed, not because they cared, but because Asuna threatened them with sending out their conversation, to not one but several of the higher level players that she knew personally.

The guild leaders had a lot of power and skill, yet they weren't unbeateble, and even they had people they feard.

"Kirito!" Asuna screamed as she held her stomach, he knew instantly it was time their baby was about to come into the world, immediately the few doctors that were in Aincrad teleported into their room and he did the only thing he could he held Asuna's hand as she began to give birth.


End file.
